This blog is mostly devoted to discussing educational policy issues and politics in Utah. This is meant to be a place to gather my research and thoughts into detailed explanations that hopefully add clarity to the discussion of public education. Many of the issues are multi-faceted and need to be examined thoroughly. Thus, some posts will be boring long. Come here looking for what I now understand. I will re-organize and readdress issues as I learn more.

Monday, February 6, 2012

USOE details huge list of 35 education related "Boxcar" bills

"Boxcar" bills are potential bills that are named and numbered by a certain deadline (Feb. 4 this year by the looks of it), but have no content publicly available besides that name and number. The actual text and effects of the bill remain secret until the legislator decides to make them available to the public. Once they are available to the public for 24 hours, they can be started in the bill process normally--being assigned to a committee and progressing through committee and floor votes in both houses of the legislature. OR...a bill can be passed "under suspension of the rules," thus skipping committee hearings with pesky questions from the public and rushing to the front of the line to be considered on the floor. for example, HB477, the GRAMA bill, controversially rushed from unveiling of text through two easy votes in the Senate and House to the governor's office in only a few days.

Bob Bernick wrote an excellent commentary on the subject at the end of November. At that time, 60% of the proposed legislation was still secret. On Feb. 4, as near as I can tell, about 200 House bills, resolutions, and rules changes dropped into the system along with over 110 Senate bills, concurrent resolutions, and joint resolutions. All but one or two of the House bills numbered from HB 330 to HB 510 read "2/4/2012 Bill Numbered by Title Without any Substance" as of late tonight, February 6. The Senate, which is about 1/3 the size of the House, reads the same for all but one or two bills from about SB 173 to SB 279, plus a bunch of the resolutions. The list of bills by number is here. You can check the Bill Status links on each bill, and see that designation on Feb. 4, 2012, even later when the text of the bill gets added.

Why would a transparency loving legislature maintain at least 30% of its proposed legislation secret two full weeks into the session? Bernick said in the article above that "sources inside the Legislature tell UtahPolicy that the percent of “protected” bills is increasing, as legislators learn, from experience and talking to colleagues, that one way to avoid unnecessary attention in this day of emails, texts, and other instant communications, is to keep what could end up as a controversial bill under wraps."

As Joe Pyrah commented about boxcar bills a couple of years ago when he was still a reporter: "They know DAMN well what will go into those bills."